Select Xbox Insider Program users can now test Game Hubs, a new feature that Xbox is testing ahead of a wider release.
As shared by the Xbox team on Wednesday, Game Hubs will appear whenever a player selects a game. These hubs include various stats relevant to the game, such as friends that are currently playing, recent captures, events, available DLC, and more.
This means that instead of a game directly launching, a user will go through the hub first. The default selection when opening a game hub will be to then launch a game, allowing players to essentially double-tap to quickly get into a game.
If players want to change settings so that selecting a game launches it directly instead of opening a game hub, they can alter their settings by opening My games & apps, then Settings, then Games & apps.
Game Hubs are available now for members of the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring of the Xbox Insider Program. This update will become mandatory for members of that ring starting on March 25, 2025 at 3:00 a.m. PT / 6:00 a.m. ET.
Reaction: This could be neat, but implementation is key
This is an interesting idea for a new feature, and there are situations where I can see it being useful. Instantly knowing that a new DLC is available (or is coming up soon) would be particurlarly nice.
Even so, I don’t love the concept of hopping into a game being slowed down significantly. If the process is quick enough and it’s only adding another half a second or so, that’s not a big deal, but if it’s more than that, I’d likely want Game Hubs to be disabled.
The feature is only in testing right now, and the developers working on it are asking for feedback, so it’ll be interesting to see how this goes in the future.
I’m curious, would anyone reading this that regularly plays Xbox games enjoy using Game Hubs or not? Let me know!
